Littlehawk
by Star Vortex
Summary: A chance murder and an accidental invitation; how's a lone Bosmer to cope? Being broody and mysterious might have worked on others, but it's not the blood and death that take her off guard – it's the surprise of finding a family. As Skyrim rumbles with the oncoming civil war, the powers of the land are shifting in preparation – including the Dark Brotherhood.


A distraction between my many writing projects. Research, let's say, into that ever-present question: can I write a fanfic about an OC that's actually likeable? And also let's play with assassins. And evilness. And all the Dark Brotherhood funsies. In the meantime, here's hoping that someone out there will get something out of this; we'll see how it goes. And thanks to my amazing beta Wryter501, who helped me turn a pile of string cheese into the chapter you see before you.

* * *

It is only by looking back to the beginning that we realize what omens came to us.

It didn't begin with the jester, but it would be foolish to say he wasn't a sign of things to come. I expect a scholar or priest might have more to say about the encounter if he and I somehow lost our common sense and shared the story; neither one of us have ever been ones to talk about our shared history. Though I doubt a scholar or priest would survive such an encounter.

I first met him on the road, on the rugged tundra between Whiterun and the Pale where the ground swelled into small, gentle hills. With two fresh deerskins to my name and rainclouds advancing from the west, I was covering ground as quickly as I could on two feet; the sun was going down, and the several sabercat tracks crossing my path were enough to make me worry. There was a farm nearby, I knew, and I couldn't see any cover suitable enough for a campsite. I didn't like farms and I definitely didn't like asking for help, but I preferred the pain of idle chatter to the pain of being mauled. I could knock on their door and hope a lone woman wouldn't be seen as enough of a threat to refuse, or perhaps I could even sneak in with the animals and be gone in the morning before they even knew I'd been there.

The windmill stood stark against the hilly lowlands, easy to find and follow. It was only a few rises before I could see the road that passed the farm by, and that was also when I saw the wagon. It was angled next to a scraggly little tree and carrying a long rectangular box almost as big as the horse pulling it, and next to that wagon was a jester, wrapped up in sinister red and black.

His odd clothes were what gave me pause, but it was his mannerisms that had me stay. I had never seen a jester before, although some stories still circled about how fancy the southern courts had been before the Great War. I couldn't imagine where he might have come from, or where a jester might possibly find work in a land as ruggedly prideful as Skyrim, but there he was all the same – dusty, damp and strangely cheerful underneath all the frustration he was throwing at his broken wagon wheel.

I hesitated at first. Reason urged me to keep walking, to avoid him and find the place where I could deal with the least people. I didn't like people, and yet here I was staring down at a person from the top of a hill like the most socially inept hawk in Tamriel.

And with all that inept staring, the jester caught sight of me in no time at all.

I knew I didn't look like much, with my raggedy leather armor and solid coat of dirt. I was armed, of course, but nothing fancier than steel––enough to handle a few skirmishes, but not enough to be a real adventurer. With my short brown hair, dusty skin and pointed ears, I must have looked like I'd sleepwalked my way out of Valenwood, fallen into a muddy puddle somewhere along the way and then decided Skyrim was as good a place as any to wander around hunting foxes. Which wouldn't be too far from the truth, aside from the sleepwalking.

"You!" he shouted my way. "Did Loreius send you to fix my wheel? No, no, of course he didn't––no manners from Loreius, no matter how many times I ask; he'll just stay there and watch me suffer from a distance. Stupid farmers!"

He then bared his teeth and hissed at the wagon wheel, which had fallen clean off, and before I knew it I was walking toward him. I wasn't much of a conversationalist, nor really anything that might be mistaken for a warm and pleasant person, but I would try. In appearance, the jester was almost as short as I was, as well as an unhealthy shade of pale with stringy shoulder-length red hair and startling golden eyes. He was all wire and sinew, perhaps best described as 'sleek,' – he might have been considered handsome, were it not for ghostly pallor, the way he moved and his general air of madness. He looked like he would be quite at home inside a coffin, but his quick, fluid motions were like nothing I had ever seen before. He moved like deadly, irritated cat, and none of it matched up with what I had been told about jesters. There was something secret about him – something dangerous. And try as I might, I couldn't help the deep tug of my curiosity.

"You have a problem," I stated when I reached his side of the road.

"Problem, problem––it's this damned wheel! And that damned Loreius, who refuses to help poor Cicero and his Mother. Poor, poor Mother with all this… this snow and wind and other nasty things. She doesn't want this!" Then, sheepishly, the jester looked up at me. "Well. I don't want this. She's quite dead, you see; has been for years now. It's her corpse I'm moving. You can bet she won't tell me what she wants, oh no; she won't say a thing to poor Cicero. So I manage."

He wasn't all there in the head, clearly, but he also didn't seem offended when I didn't offer the customary condolences and friendship that were usually expected from strangers. He didn't seem to expect much from me at all, really, and quite happily filled the silence with his own odd ramblings.

I didn't mind him, I decided. And he certainly needed help; usually I would be content to leave travelers to their own business, but with several sabercats in the area I would doubt the safety of even a solitary legionnaire, let alone a solitary jester. Even a jester that moved as fluidly as this one. Add in the patrolling Imperial forces and the growing civil unrest, and no road was a safe place for anyone on their own. The farm was only a short walk away; I could find a place there quickly once I was sure he wouldn't be eaten.

"I could talk to Loreius," I offered.

"You?" Cicero asked, tilting his head at me. "You would talk to Loreius for poor Cicero, get him to fix my wheel?"

"Yes."

The jester lit up in an instant, breaking into a violently happy grin. "Yes, yes, happy day! Well, night. Sunset? Happy sunset, yes, please talk to Loreius. Cicero has coin, shiny clinky coin for the kind stranger when it's done!"

And that was how I spent the last few minutes of daylight walking to the farm on the other side of the road to track down Loreius.

The farm was small and quiet, almost mockingly peaceful. In the cities there were beggars and thieves to feel equal to, but here in the open I could not ignore all the precious things I'd never and would never have. Food. Security. A home. A family. Valenwood had given me little, and my uncle had given me even less. The bandits I'd roved with had never made it secret that I was there because I was useful; the world would give me no chances, and I had accepted that, but that made it hard when I saw the chances other people had been given. It made me even less eager to sleep here.

Loreius, a tanned Imperial, was less than happy to see me. "Oh, for the love of––what is it now?"

"There is a man by the road," I said. "He needs help with his wagon."

"You're with that odd Cicero fella?" the farmer asked dubiously. "Do you have any idea what's in that wagon of his? Because I certainly don't. 'Mother,' my ass; it could be anything. Weapons. Skooma. And him? A jester? There hasn't been a merryman in Skyrim for a hundred years." He looked me up and down, likely finding it hard to picture the strange jester in the company of a such a scruffy woodswoman. "And who are you, exactly?"

I was unprepared, and raced through my memory to pick out a forgettable name. Lars was suspiciously male, Farengar suspiciously educated. In Whiterun, there'd been that irritating little girl... "Braithe," I answered as casually as I could. "Just a traveler. Like him. Fix his wheel, and he will travel away from you." Loreius was clearly unsettled by Cicero, so it seemed best to make the problem about his own gain.

"Yes, I…" The Imperial sighed. "Look, I know he needs help. I didn't mean…"

"It will be over more quickly, dear," said his wife from the potato patch.

"Yes. Yes, I know." Loreius ran a hand through his hair and looked at me in defeat. "Sorry. I know this looks… un-neighborly on my part. I don't mean it like that. Well maybe I did, but… no, I shouldn't be the kind of man to turn away a stranger in need." He gave a resolute nod, then glanced back at me. "Go tell him that I'll be down to fix his wagon first thing tomorrow. And…" He seemed to struggle with the next part, "he's welcome to be our guest until then. If he wants. Better to sleep under a roof these days, what with that Markarth business spreading through the Holds. Looters are getting bolder these days."

I nodded in understanding, though I somehow doubted Cicero would take the offer if it meant leaving his wagon. I turned to make my way back down the hill.

It was almost dark by the time I gave Cicero the news, and the rainclouds were still coming in. Once again he lit up with joy, shrieking about his mother and foolish Loreius and how happy I had made his family. He even did a cartwheel at the end of it, before pausing to hurl a small pouch of coins my way.

"For the kind stranger!" he exclaimed as the money hit me in the shin. I was glad to be wearing armor. "Thank you thank you thank you! And Mother thanks you as well!"

"Loreius will let you be his guest tonight," I said, picking up the gold and stuffing it in my pocket. "The roads are dangerous these days."  
I might have been annoyed at the almost-violence, if it hadn't contained more money than I'd seen in the month. It was a large sum––suspiciously large––but I wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"No no, I couldn't." He fluttered his hands around it emphasize. "Not with Mother out here all alone. Cicero can't leave her out, especially not with… dangerousness."

"There's been blood spilled at Markarth," I warned. "There's soldiers here now. And there's also a family of sabercats around here. You shouldn't sleep in the open." Cicero was clearly a stranger to Skyrim, which just made me more certain that he would do better in company than by himself.

"Pfft. Soldiers. Little hounds biting each other's tails. I'll skin them and the sabercats just the same." He drew a black dagger from his belt, twirled it, then returned it to the sheath.

I didn't know what to say to that, so I said nothing. Cicero began whistling merrily as he rooted through the small space on the wagon that was not taken up by the humongous box, apparently not at all minding the way I stood there and stared at him in silence. The sunlight was completely gone now, and the clouds were overtaking the sky.

"I am going to camp here," I declared without preamble. I immediately thought of a hundred different ways I could have said that less awkwardly.

Cicero stopped his rummaging, straightened and turned to face me. He was frowning deeply.

"Do you have apples?" he asked seriously.

I blinked, somewhat taken off guard. "Yes. I have apples."

Cicero nodded, thumbing his chin as if I had just said something profound. "Then give them here. I have cheese."

I handed him my three apples, and he drew his knife with another twirl and began peeling them.

"Under the wagon is better," Cicero said. "Mother has all she needs for the rain. Cicero, less so."

I wondered how many times he had slept under the wagon to be so casual about it.

We spent a good few of the following minutes in silence as he cut our meager dinner. Cicero would occasionally mumble at the apples as he cut them, or perhaps he was mumbling to himself. I didn't much care either way; the fact he wasn't trying to drag smalltalk out of me was a relief. It felt odd, because I realized I might actually be enjoying his company – more than I would have enjoyed Loreius', at any rate.

"Be careful when you travel," I said abruptly. The only lead-in I could think of was to ask him where he was going, but that wasn't any of my business. "The trouble in the west is spreading. They've sent up a branch of the Imperial Legion to deal with Ulfric Stormcloak; there's talk of peace-breaking going on there. There's even Thalmor mucking around now."

"Hmm." Cicero tossed the cut potatoes into the pan. "Always trouble, everywhere. Such a bother, really; bother and trouble are everywhere we go. Cyrodiil. Skyrim. Morrowind. So much nonsense, so little time. Hmmph."

"You came from the south. Did you come from Cyrodiil?"

"Cyrodiil, yes, and a hundred scoundrels and petty thieves that fight over scraps like alley dogs. Nothing left there for Mother and Cicero, not anymore."

I had heard talk of the violence plaguing the Heartland. Cicero had to have some physical skill, I reasoned, to have come all this way dragging his mother's corpse. "Things haven't settled down there, then?"

"There? Then? No, not now, not ever––not without a good purge, I think, but how's Mother to help with that when no one listens to her?"

I had no answer for that, but luckily he didn't seem to be looking for one. He shuffled his bedroll directly underneath the wagon and then returned to hand me sliced apples and cheese.

"For the kind stranger." he said, reaching straight into the cooking pot and handing me a handful of potato pieces straight from the fire.

I yelped and dropped the scalding food onto my crossed legs, earning a peal of mischievous laughter from my companion. I might have been angry. if I wasn't busy being amazed by how he continued to reach into the pot and eat the potato pieces one after the other like nothing was amiss.

I had several things I wanted to say, but they would probably sound more rude than I wanted, so I stayed silent.

Cicero hummed as we both ate our food and then moved as one to douse the fire. With both of us going our separate ways in the morning, there was no reason to keep the coals glowing for a second fire.

"Perhaps the kind stranger would also like to sleep under the wagon?" Cicero chirped when I made for my bedroll.

"Huh?" I responded intelligently.

"Wind and rain are almost on us. It will be drier there."

I hesitated, equally tempted and cautious. Skyrim rain wasn't known for its gentleness, but it had been years since I'd slept within touching distance of someone, which we certainly would be under the wagon. I had enough strength to deal with him if his hands began wandering where they weren't wanted, but my gut told me he wasn't interested in that sort of mischief. There had been no suggestive smiles or lingering glances my direction, overt or otherwise; in my experience, even the most subtle men would display some signs of attraction before moving to action.

Cicero was followed by an aura of mystery, even an inexplicable sense of danger, but it was like none I'd come across before. And unlike with most, it didn't drive me off; if anything, it only intrigued me more.

While the jester had a certain air of madness hovering about him, there was an odd consistency in his wild behavior. Like a wolf on the tundra that only raised its hackles when hungry or scared, Cicero seemed to have decided for himself that I was neither prey nor threat. He could be many things, but he did not seem subtle; if he disliked me, I was fairly certain I would have known by now.

But sleeping with my sword in hand wouldn't hurt, either.

"Oh, the kind stranger is wary of poor Cicero, hmm?" he said when I drew my sword and clutched it close. "So many wicked things on the roads these days, so many thievers and grievers and killers abound. Does Cicero frighten the poor stranger?"

"If you touch me I will stab you," I stated as I climbed into my bedroll, now under the wagon.

"Ooh," Cicero crooned with a bit too much interest. "A promise, such a promise––so many people make promises, yes. Will the stranger keep hers, I wonder?"

With that, Cicero hopped cheerfully into his own bedroll, right next to mine. Rain began to tap at the wagon, which became a drum, then a roar. The darkness under the wagon was swallowing, but I could feel the jester staring at me with two golden eyes and that unwavering grin. Curious. Challenging. Mischievous. The space beneath the wagon suddenly felt much smaller, and I wondered if I should have stayed silent. His amusement made me think that touching me hadn't even occurred to him until I'd mentioned it, but what was said could not be unsaid – and I'd been the one to say it. As cautious a person as I was, I was also incredibly, immovably stubborn when it came to personal pride––something I did still possess, despite the dirt and the poverty and probably the smell.

A deep, equally mischievous part of me hoped he would test me, just so I could prove myself right. I had decided to sleep here, and I would not be intimidated by a jester.

So I held my sword close, angling it just enough that I could stab his leg if I wished, and stared right back at him without flinching as I finished my apple and cheese.

If anything, that seemed to engage him more.

He shifted a bit here and there, and I tensed up each time. It was possible I was overreacting, but the joy he felt was disconcerting; he seemed to get great pleasure out of my displeasure. There were moments when he seemed to almost reach out, pause, gauge my reaction and then settle back gleefully to watch me be annoyed.

The almost-touches were more chaste than I had expected; shoulder, knee, wrist––nowhere that would be inappropriate. That almost made it even more frustrating. At least with a real grope, I would have an excuse to leave without it seeming like I was running. No, Cicero was not looking for that sort of mischief; all he wanted was to watch me react. He might almost seem innocent or naive to do such, if not for the maddening grin that suggested he knew exactly what he was doing.

Focused as I was on his hands, I was taken completely off guard when he reached his foot to nudge mind––so off guard that I jerked, knocked my head against the bottom of the wagon and did indeed feel my sword enter flesh.

Cicero let out a yelp that soon dissolved into shrill laughter.

"She kept her word!" he declared to the night, scuttling away to clutch at his stabbed calf. Not even a wound could dampen his cheer, it seemed; he just rolled right into the rain, stood, limped one circle around the wagon, then came back down and slid back into his space and started grinning at me again.

"If you touch me I will stab you," I repeated.

"I believe you," he replied earnestly, not changing a thing.

He stared. I stared back. He fidgeted, and I prepared for another touch, staying aware to all of his appendages this time.

* * *

And then there was light?

I blinked in confusion, because Cicero had not changed at all. One moment I was waiting for him to test my promise in the darkness, and the next moment I was doing it in the gray light of morning. The rain had stopped and the air was chilled. Had I slept? I couldn't quite tell; there was a numbness in my bones from clutching my sword all night that I couldn't feel past. Had he slept? I couldn't tell that either, because he looked exactly the same as he had during the night: grinning, mischievous and far too cheerful at my defensiveness.

So I decided to play the game and planted my palm flat on his stomach––the closest, quickest touch I could muster.

If I had been surprised at his touch, it was nothing compared to his surprise at mine. The jester yelled, convulsed violently, smacked the back of his skull against a wagon wheel and then there was a knife coming at my chest.

I kicked him in the shins and catapulted out from under the wagon.

"No fair, no fair!" Cicero screamed as I escaped his reach. "The stranger stabbed Cicero; Cicero should be able to stab her back!"

"Do not!" I said, rolling to my knees and diving for my knapsack.

"Oh Mother, why does she tease?" the jester asked his giant box, dragging himself into the open with the gracefulness of a dejected cat. "We played a game, we did. You made it up, not Cicero. How about I make up a game now?"

I was ready to very firmly refuse, but then Cicero caught sight of something behind me and lit up with another grin.

"Oh, look, look! Loreius has come to fix my wheel! Off, off, off again we go––we'll kill through the hills, me and Mother, we will!"

Loreius slowed down just enough to be noticed, but not enough for Cicero to care.

"Right," said the farmer dubiously. "Let's get this over with, shall we?"

Cicero replied by standing on his head.

"This won't take long," the farmer informed us, although it seemed directed more at me than Cicero.

"Good good good! Not long at all, and then we will be moving again. What a smart man this Loreius is."

Loreius shuddered under the jester's smile and got to work. Cicero busied himself with the box. I busied myself with gathering my things.

Loreius also busied himself with my company.

"It's, uh, lovely weather we're having this morning," he said in my direction, remaining mostly focused on the wheel.

I looked at mist and soaked ground. I did not think the weather was particularly pleasant, nor that it would become so. I did not reply.

"Uh, did you both sleep outside?" Loreius asked after a few moments, refusing to meet my eye.

It seemed like that was not his business, so I didn't reply to that, either.

"You and the Cicero fellow, are you two traveling in the same direction?"

That also didn't seem like his business. And then I realized with horror that he wasn't trying to get at something; he was trying to make… smalltalk. I suddenly wished very much for Cicero to make up the game he wanted. Or even to stab me. Anything that might possibly scare Loreius away, or even just get him to stop trying to have a conversation.

"Cicero," I barked. "What game?"

Cicero perked up. "Oh, a special game––another one with knives, you see. The last one was so fun. Do you usually sleep with your eyes open?"

"Are either of you hungry?" Loreius said a bit too loudly. "My wife and I have some stew up at the house, enough for guests." He seemed very keen to avoid reasons for Cicero to smile. "Just head on up and I'll be done by the time you get back down."

"We are not companions," I growled.

"Companions?" Cicero chirped. "Cicero? The kind stranger? Why, we just met on the road. And played a game of stabbing. And we shall play another."

Loreius looked at me desperately. "Come, Wood Elf, there's plenty up there. I'm sure you've got tales to tell from the road."

This was one of the reasons I usually took care to stay away from people. And as intriguing as Cicero was, he did not outweigh Loreius, or the pointless energy it would take to stay and humor the attempts at polite conversation.

"I'm leaving," I announced. "I have to get to Windhelm."

"Leaving?" Cicero whined. "Before we've played our game?"

"Yes." I shouldered my knapsack and tucked the bedroll under my arm. "Thank you for cutting the apples and for the cheese. And the gold."

"Ah. Well. I thank you for your help. And more importantly, my Mother thanks you for your help."

Loreius had paused in his work to frown at me. "It's a bad time to be going to Windhelm, friend. That's Ulfric Stormcloak's city. They say the place is crawling with Thalmor, and you know how Nords get when they're forced into quarters with High Elves."

"There are ice wolves in the mountains," I said, hoping it would make him stop. "It's either there, Dawnstar or Winterhold. And I don't like Dawnstar or Winterhold."

Loreius shook his head and plowed on. "But Windhelm? They've never been content with the White-Gold Concordat. Gods, one of the last travelers said they have a shrine of Talos right outside the city gates. And ever since the Thalmor caught wind of Ulfric's worship in Markarth, well... people have been disappearing. And people are beginning to notice. There's a reason the Imperial Legion hasn't left yet."

"I'm not a Nord. I'm not a High Elf. I didn't fight in the Great War. I didn't sign the Concordat. The prey will be the same no matter who fights who."

Loreius paused, glancing at me with raised eyebrows. "Surely––"

"Goodbye," I cut him off. I knew very well what rumors were swirling around my destination, and I did not need to discuss politics with a stranger.

Cicero peered down at me from on top of his box, clearly disappointed. His disappointment made me feel oddly pleasant inside; most people that had more than a few words with me were glad when I was gone, but Cicero seemed to have actually enjoyed my being there.

"Goodbye," I said to Cicero, more softly and perhaps more genuinely than I had done to Loreius.

Cicero halted for a moment before he nodded. I wondered if he sensed the difference. I decided that it didn't matter; for all his oddities, he was still a stranger I had met on the road.

And when I walked away, I assumed I would never see him again.

* * *

And there you have it. Chapter one of what might be a running series, if people seem to enjoy it. Don't forget to tell me what you think if you have a spare moment, and happy reading to all.


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